Danny and Sammi
by garon604
Summary: The adventures of two loveable babies: Danny the Baby Lupe, sensible and reasonable, and Sammi the Baby Kacheek, with a fun spirit and an impulsive mind. usually saved for holiday stories
1. Christmas in the Ice Caves

Alas, Christmas approaches Neopia once more. Young Neopets of all species in all worlds anxiously lay awake into the wee hours of the morning, contemplating the gifts they were sure to receive from their families. However, some Neopets in Happy Valley may be just a bit itoo/i greedy.

"Hurry up, Sammi!" a Baby Lupe said to a Baby Kacheek behind him as he crawled along the ventilation shaft of their grand NeoHome. "Joni and Sparky are going to know that we're searching for the gifts again if we're too slow!"

"Well, I'm trying, Danny!" Sammi snapped back in a harsh whisper. "It's just that you really smell."

"That's no excuse to being slow!" Danny retorted, his voice rising.

"Well, I very well say that it is –"

A small cough from Joni's, their owner's, room sounded from below. This sobered the two bickering Neopets, and they continued crawling, an Oozing Candle stuck inside Danny's mouth giving off a foul stench of rotten eggs and goo that lit the way in front of them.

"Joni probably hid the presents in that secret room of hers again," Sammi said as they arrived above their older Gelert brother's, Sparky's, room. "I don't even see the point of making a room in the garden made out of Sand; she should've used the money to buy me some designer diapers!"

"Whatever, sis," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "Let's just get there!"

They continued crawling for a few more minutes before the vent simply ended with a large fan.

"This must be the place," Danny said, pointing to a screen-cover. Sammi, though they were a long way's away from anybody's bedroom, silently pushed the cover down until it fell, swinging on the ceiling in the room below them.

"After you," Sammi said, and both Neopets lowered themselves down into Joni's Secret Room. Both Neopets landed on the ground, which was made out of sand and extremely soft. Something about the room made the Oozing Candle suddenly stop Oozing, and its light was greatly diminished. A large mound of what looked like boxes of various sizes stood, stacked neatly in a corner next to a large jar of Chocolate Neopoints.

"There're the gifts!" Danny exclaimed. He and his sister ran towards them excitedly. However, when they arrived, they took them and tried opening them, but to no avail.

"It's too dark!" Sammi said, whacking the Oozing Candle as if under the impression that by doing this it would suddenly start Oozing again.

Danny, however, began taking the presents and throwing them back at the ventilation vent. "We'll have to take as many presents as we can and take them back to our rooms to peek! We can replace them tomorrow before Joni wakes up."

"Good idea!" Sammi agreed, helping her sibling throw neatly wrapped gifts into the filthy vent. However, as the last gift landed with a large cloud of dust in the ventilation vent, the room began flashing a bright yellow, and all the sand began caving in.

"Oh snap!" Both Neopets quickly jumped back into the vent, only to find their way out of the collapsing room blocked by a large barricade of Christmas gifts.

"Quick! Get all the presents back into the room!" the Kacheek commanded, and both babies began throwing all of the stolen presents back into the room.

Finally, once their way was clear again, the sand stopped moving, and the room was restored.

"Psh, it's something someone like Joni would do," Sammi frowned, disapproving. Suddenly, she spotted a battered box that they had missed; it was sitting in front of the fan and looked like a Baby Lupe with an Oozing Candle had recently squashed it. "Hmm, I guess we missed one, Danny."

Both Neopets, after putting the screen cover to the secret room back, crawled over to the gift and carefully opened it. Inside was a set of Full Gelert Armor, but some of the chains had snapped and there was a large multitude of scratches on it.

"Danny! Why'd you go and ruin Sparky's Christmas gift?" Sammi scolded. "He's been wanting one of these iforever/i; you know that at the start of the New Year he's going to Shenkuu to train, and you know these full armor sets don't come cheap!"

Danny was breathing heavily in shock. "What are we going to do, Sammi? We can't replace it or fix it by ourselves! I'm not even sure Donny the Toy Repair Bori can fix it, and even if he could, it's midnight and we'd never be able to survive the raging blizzard outside to get to his workshop!"

"Right ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Sammi said. She contemplated the matter for a moment before saying, "We'll have to visit him tonight, as tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Joni will start taking all the presents to the Christmas tree and she'll notice if we're gone the entire day. I'm not sure he ever sleeps anymore; all he does is just work. If we take it to him, maybe he'll be able to fix it!"

Sammi said the last sentence with excitement, and rewrapped the broken set of Gelert armor. She turned to crawl down the vent to the foyer where they could leave the house, but Danny was blocking the way, looking skeptical.

"How do you intend to survive the weather outside?!" he exclaimed. "We'll probably get completely swept off our feet!"

"We can head through the Ice Caves," Sammi reminded him. "So for maybe half our trip, we'll be safe."

"But it's the iIce Caves/i! Filled with horrors and crevasses and dangers alike - "

"Danny, Danny, Danny," Sammi said, smiling and trying to move past him. "You've got to have some faith, brother!" She finally managed to get past him and, as she left the glow of the Oozing Candle, she said, casually, "If you're not going, I'll go alone."

These words seemed to strike Danny in a way Sammi predicted they would. She was barely just getting to the part of the vent above the kitchen before she heard a scuffling behind her, signaling the return of her brother. Smiling to herself, the two crawling Neopets reached the screen cover that was above the foyer, and knocking it down, they fell on to a plush carpet and crept out of the door into the raging snowstorm.

Luckily for the two Baby Neopets, they lived right next to Ice Caves. In just a few fast minutes, they were sheltered from the storm, though little did they know they were leaving the frying pan for the fire.

"Sammi, if we don't survive this, I'll kill you," Danny said as he readjusted his scarf. The weather in the Ice Caves, though protected from the snow outside, was unfortunately even colder than the temperature outside. The two Baby Neopets, on their quest to fix Sparky's full set of Gelert armor, were slowly freezing to death as they climbed a path lit only by a multitude of strange, rainbow-coloured lamps that cast an incandescent glow on everything they could see through the gloom. The path was made out of stone while everything else, including the walls and ceiling, were covered completely with ice.

"I think we're passing the Ice Crystal Shop now, look," Sammi said, pointing to an igloo-shaped block of snow at the end of a path that branched off the one they were slowly traversing. "I guess we're making some progress now!"

Danny felt slightly more hopeful after this, but even less so when he pointed to a Negg-shaped building and pointed out, "The Neggery!", though he seemed unhappy to see it.

"Oh, the Neggery!" Sammi exclaimed, almost jumping with joy. Despite living right next to the Ice Caves, the young Kacheek had never actually visited the fabled structure. Sammi had a great love for Neggs, whether it be collecting them, playing with them, or eating them, and she had always wanted to pay a visit to the Negg Faerie, the so-called 'Guardian of All Things Neggy'.

Sammi stopped their little walking party by holding out her arm and pointing. "Danny, we have to go visit that place!" She was sure that her brother would be as excited as her, and was slightly crestfallen when he ducked under her and continued walking. "Danny? Danny?! It's not like you've ever been there, have you?"

At this, the Lupe turned around and smiled, rather sheepishly, before admitting, "Well actually… yes, I have."

Sammi gasped. "What? How could you have? Joni never took us there; only Sparky when he wanted new Neggs for his training!"

"Well…" Danny looked reluctant to continue walking and talking, but all the same seemed prepared to make a confession as they turned off the main path and on the path to the Neggery. "Actually… remember that afternoon when I disappeared and when I came back I had said that I had been playing Snow Wars the entire time with Daphne?"

Daphne was a Baby Chia who lived two NeoHomes away from them. "Yes…" Sammi replied, "Go on."

"Well…" Danny took a deep breath, "We weren't the ientire/i time. We played a couple of games, but that stupid Santa opponent made us so angry that we just took one of the one-piece Snowmen and dashed off to the Ice Caves, ready to sacrifice it to the Snowager."

Sammi said nothing more, trying to absorb all of this information. They were just over half of the way to the Neggery when she asked, "Well, what does this have to do with the Neggery?"

Danny replied, "Well, on our way to the Snowager, we accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up at the Neggery. We pounded on the door and told the Snowager that we had a healthy snowman for him to eat, but instead this really tall green-haired Faerie came out and started throwing Devil Neggs at us, telling us to 'Get lost or else.' We ran for it, and ended up at the Ice Arena, where the Negg Faerie had ended up chasing us to. She dropped a gigantic pile of Neggs on us before taking off. We eventually managed to find our way out and began running back to Happy Valley because of a gigantic roar from a cavern near us. Daphne and I promised never to tell our owners."

The Lupe seemed to have finished as they were only a couple minutes away from their destination. "So is that how the Snowager got his horde of Neggs?"

"You betcha."

"Well…" Sammi suddenly saw the danger she had pulled them into. The Negg Faerie was most likely still mad at Danny, and to sum it all up the Snowager had stolen most of her Neggs when she probably went back for them a few hours later. As they neared the front door, Sammi had not noticed that Danny had raised his paw to knock, and had only just started saying, "Danny, we have to g – "

The door opened with a bang, and an extremely tall but angry Faerie with shocking green hair, clothing that seemed to match the design of Neggs, and large dragonfly wings appeared. She was holding an extremely large Negg, which seemed to be glowing alternatively with all of the colours of the rainbow.

"You!" she croaked, pointing a finger at Danny. "You – you have the inerve/i to come back here! You –"

Danny was taken aback with this greeting. He raised a paw in greeting and stuttered, "H – h – hey, Negg Faerie… h – how're th – the N –"

"Don't even utter the word with your foul lips!" the Negg Faerie interrupted angrily. "You dare come back to visit me after over half of my stock of Neggs were taken by that infernal snow worm! You have the inerve/i, you spineless, bone-tickling, selfish little –"

But they never did find out exactly what kind of little thing Danny was, for at that moment a loud roar interrupted their conversation. Suddenly, a large multitude of icicles shot past all of their heads to land, like daggers, on the door of the Neggery. A few seconds later, the Snowager had appeared, crawling over the ice in the direction of the Neggery with the ease of an earthworm crawling through dirt.

"Hey, Neggy!" it roared. "I heard you talking about me earlier!"

The Negg Faerie's expression had almost completely changed. Though she stilled looked angry, she seemed to be taken more by fear now. "Hello Snowager!" she said in a falsely bright, cheery voice. "I was just saying what a generous, handsome beast you were –"

"LIES! ALL LIES!" the snow worm roared. It smashed its tail against the ice wall behind the Neggery, and a layer of the ice cracked. Half of it fell on to half of the Neggery, crushing all of the Neggs in that part of the building with the sound of somebody sitting on a whoopee cushion inconveniently placed on a rubber padded piano bench.

At the precise moment the Neggs were squashed, the Negg Faerie had winced. She seemed sad and furious at the same time for a split second, but immediately retained her sappy attitude.

"Haha, Snowager, you just love your little jokes…"

The Snowager looked at her with rage before saying, "Well, I don't appreciate what you said about me! Though nothing can harm my icy hide, words hurt like the power of daggers! I'll just have to take it out on your guests, then…"

"I can't let you do that!" the Negg Faerie surprisingly said. "If one of them gets eaten while they're at the Neggery, it's up to me to do all the boring Neomail-writing to their owners, telling them what happened. Why don't you just take what they're carrying, instead?"

With this, she took out a 00 Negg and threw it at the bag that the broken set of armor was inside, which was being carried by Sammi. There was a large flash of white, and suddenly the bag was inside the Snowager's mouth and the Negg in the Negg Faerie's hand.

"Wh – you don't understand!" Danny said, clearly frightened. "That's our brother's Christmas gift!"

"You mean you don't respect your family enough to take proper care of your gifts?" the Snowager said, somewhat playfully. "This will make a nice touch to my pile of treasure!"

And with that, making sure that his wagging tail squashed the rest of the Neggery, he left to go back to his cavern.

A grim silence greeted the departure of the monster. The Negg Faerie's expressions seemed to go from happiness, anger, sadness, and denial. Finally, after about half a minute, she seemed to settle upon intense grief, and broke down at what was left of the doorway of the Neggery, sobbing to herself.

"What have iI/i done wrong?!" she sobbed. "If it wasn't for that Lupe… oh, that Lupe, if I still had my Cool Negg I would whip him up something good…"

"Let's go before she decides to become angry," Danny whispered to Sammi. The Kacheek nodded, apparently sickened by the sight on the ground before them. Quietly, both Neopets snuck away from the Neggery, and only dared to talk again when they were halfway through the Ice Caves on the main path.

"What are we going to do?" Sammi said, resisting the urge to break down and weep. "How are we supposed to get the armor back from the Snowager?"

"Well, what else can we do, except go into his cave and get it back ourselves?" Danny said. "Come on, sis – we've got this far already; don't give up hope just yet."

"Are you sure about this?" Sammi said, as they stopped in front of the Snowager's cavern a few minutes later. "The Snowager is pretty powerful."

"You heard him; he's downright sensitive." Danny said, getting out the Oozing Candle again and preparing to sneak into the cave. "Now, Sammi, listen… if we don't survive this, I want you to know –"

Sammi interrupted him. "Aww, Danny, I love you too!"

Danny seemed shocked by this. "Who said anything about love? I want you to know that I only got you a Pile of Dung for Christmas, because I couldn't afford anything else!"

Sammi seemed crestfallen by this. "Oh… well…"

Danny smiled and patted his sister on the shoulder. "Let's just go, then."

"Right…"

They crept down the cavern. As they neared the Snowager's room, they could hear loud, booming snoring that sounded like the trumpeting of a thousand Elephantes.

"Good, he's asleep," Sammi whispered, relieved. "If we're lucky, we can go in, quietly snatch the armor, and leave as quickly as possible."

The two Neopets finally reached the Snowager's room. Though they were on a mission of stealth, they could not stop themselves from gasping in shock. The Snowager's treasure seemed to sparkle and shine before them. A mass collection of Neggs, plush toys, and other such treasures were sorted in a gigantic mound in the exact center of the cavern. The Snowager was sleeping on top of all this, right next to the –

Danny groaned. "Dang! He's put the armor at the very top of the pile."

"I think I should go up there," Sammi suggested. "I can climb things better than you can. You hold the Oozing Candle but be prepared to catch the armor if I have to throw it down to you."

"Good plan," Danny agreed. "Go, quickly, before he wakes up."

Sammi, rather reluctantly, placed a foot at the foot of the pile of treasure, stepping on a Kacheek Plushie. Fear gripped her, but she overcame them as she stepped another step, and then another, and another, and another. Before she knew it, she was right next to the sleeping snow worm, and, with ease, pulled the Full Gelert Armor out. As she freed it from the mound, she cast a fearful glance at the Snowager, but it still seemed to be deeply asleep. Relieved, she turned to return to the ground, only to find that during her previous step she had overturned a Neggitus Injection, which she ended up stepping on.

Forgetting all thoughts of silence, she screamed, "Danny! Catch!" and threw the Gelert Armor to her brother before tumbling down the mountain of treasure. When she reached the bottom with an unpleasant squishing noise, she looked up to see the Snowager had awoken, and seemed extremely angry.

"Foolish little Neopets!" it roared, rearing up to attack, its tail thrashing everywhere. "You honestly think that you can fool the Snowager and its mighty horde? Well, you're wrong!"

And with that, it opened its mouth and spewed out a large stream of razor-sharp icicles. Sammi ducked and ran around to the other side of the cavern. Being so small, she was not hit by any of the icy projectiles, though one narrowly missed her head. Danny did the same, and the two Neopets bumped into each other right under the Snowager's thrashing tail.

"What are we going to do?" Danny said, sobbing, while the Snowager roared, "Pah! My tail is coming to get you, little Neopets!"

And indeed it did; the overgrown worm thrashed its tail even harder, so that each time it hit the floor icicles on the ceiling fell off. Both Neopets ijust/i avoided the falling spear-like pieces of ice.

Finally, after a few minutes of dodging, the Snowager's tail caught hold of both of them.

"Don't let go!" Sammi screamed, as Danny, now carrying the Full Gelert Armor in the bag slung on his back, began sobbing even harder. The two Neopets tried to hold on for as long as they could, but this time ended rather shortly. The Snowager gave one almighty thrust, and they were both thrown against the ceiling.

'This is what, we're done for!' Sammi thought. Any second now, she expected to fly directly to her doom via the spikes on the ceiling. However, this moment never came; she just came flying and flying until it began to snow again and they were once again on a doorstep, though this doorstep was to a homely little cottage that looked much more inviting than the Neggery ever would.

"Danny – Danny!" Sammi shook her brother, who had landed right next to her. He awoke and looked around, confused.

"Whuzzit?"

"We're here! We finally made it to Donny's!"

"Donny's?" Danny replied groggily. "But weren't we just at the Snowager's cave?"

"Yes, but there must be a hole in the ceiling or something, so we just flew out of his cave and right on to his doorstep!" Sammi replied excitedly.

The Baby Lupe seemed to be regaining the ability to think. "You've got to be kidding me," he said, getting up and checking to see that the broken armor was still there. "That is the most clichéd thing I have ever heard!"

At that precise moment, the door to the Workshop opened and a Red Bori with a long beard and a hammer in one hand was revealed, gazing at them with shock.

"Eh? Who're these?" he said, surprised. "Customers?"

"That's right!" Sammi said. She took the bag off of Danny's bag, opened it, and showed Donny the armor. "We're wondering if you could fix this? It's our brother's, and he really wanted it, but we decided to have a sneak peek at our presents early and ended up breaking it. We've come a really long way to see if you could fix it, and – "

Donny held up one finger and silenced the babbling Kacheek. "Wish I could do that," Danny muttered.

"I'm afraid I can't fix this," Donny said. "You're just going to have to tell your brother the truth."

Sammi went from excitement, to astonishment, and to sadness as fast as the Negg Faerie. "But we can't tell him that! Then he'll get so mad at us!"

Donny smiled. "The ientire/i truth."

The Kacheek was perturbed. "You mean – you mean the fact that we spent many long hours traversing up here in the middle of the night just so that his Christmas isn't ruined?"

The old Bori's grin turned into a chuckle. "That's right! Isn't that what the spirit Christmas is all about? Caring for others so much that you'll give anything they want to them?"

Danny and Sammi started to smile too, and Sammi said, putting away the set of Full Gelert Armor, "You're right, Donny."

"Well, partially, at least," Danny corrected him, as they turned to leave. "I just hope that he'll actually buy it."

"At least it's honest," Sammi said, and Danny smiled sheepishly. "And if Joni could accept such a stupid lie about playing Snow Wars for half the day…"

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Danny said, grinning as they waved goodbye to Donny. He pointed to the entrance of the Ice Caves, barely visible through the blizzard. "Come on, Sammi. Let's go home."


	2. Easter in the Gnome Underground

"Danny, you nitwit!" Sammi the Baby Kacheek and her brother Danny the Baby Lupe stumbled down a Symol hole in the middle of their lawn next to a Playful Kougra Gnome their owner, Joni, had recently bought. "How many times have I told you not to touch the uA Krawks Grey Day/u book that we saved our pocket money on to give to Joni for Grey Day?"

Danny retorted, "I only took it out of your hands because you suggested we play frisbee with it! You're the one that knocked it out of my hands."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be such a butterfingers!" Sammi snapped back, now following Danny as he got out an Oozing Candle and began to walk (they were babies, after all) through the underground tunnels.

"Maybe you shouldn't be such a brat! Now Grey Day will be ruined because of you, just like Sparky's Christmas!"

Sammi made an audible gasp in the gloom behind the Candle in the Lupe's mouth. "You did inot/i just call me a brat! It's because of your iprissiness/i that we're even here at all!"

"iMy/i prissiness? If it weren't for that, we'd still be stuck in the Ice Caves! It's because of iyou/i that we have to traverse through a similar clichéd setting!"

"No, it's because of you!" Sammi's voice now rose to a shout.

"Because of iyou/i!"

"Because of byou/b!"

"Because of both of you." A voice spoke from what appeared to be above them. The two Neopets apprehensively looked up and saw what appeared to be a wooden puppet. It eyes were glowing red and its head was spinning.

"Run for the hills!" Sammi yelled, and forgetting all dignity, she began screaming, raising her arms above her head and running back the way they came to the faint light that was the original hole they had descended. However, she had barely run two steps before she crashed into the silhouette of what looked like a Playful Kougra.

Danny, however, was calm about this, as he recognized the toy on the ceiling. He coaxed, "Relax, Sammi, that spinning doll Joni bought for Sparky right before he got admitted into the Ninja Training School must've escaped again." As Sammi sat on the ground dazed, Danny hesitantly raised the candle to bring the shadow into the radius of the light.

It was the exact same Playful Kougra Gnome. Just to make sure, Danny checked its left boot. 'Yep, there's the scratch that Sparky's spinning doll made the last time it escaped,' the Lupe thought. The gnome, however, asked, "Keep your voice down, you silly baby. You'll wake up the rest of the Gnome Underground."

The baby Kacheek regained her senses and saw the gnome bathed in light. "Holy hotcakes! It's a living Playful Kougra Gnome!"

At this, the Gnome seemed to flush with anger and embarrassment. "I am not just a 'Playful Kougra Gnome'! My name is Rainbow!"

When Sammi heard his name was Rainbow, she snorted and opened her mouth to say something but stopped with a hard nudge in the elbow and a glare from Danny.

"So, Rainbow," Danny said in a perfectly calm manner as Sammi continued to giggle in the background, "Would you happen to have our uA Krawks Grey Day/u that we dropped down this tunnel?" The gnome smiled and raised its hand. In his plastic palm, there sat the book, looking as if it had not dropped down into a dank tunnel. "Thanks a lot!" Danny reached out to take the book as Sammi stood up and brushed herself off, but Rainbow took the book out of the baby Lupe's reach. "What gives?" Danny demanded.

"Don't you know what's coming up?" Rainbow smirked.

Sammi said, in a bratty tone, "No duh! It's Grey Day on the 14th Day of Eating! Every Neopet in Neopia knows that, but do stupid Playful Kougra Gnomes?"

The normally inanimate object certainly looked alive when he declared, "bMy name is Rainbow! Do you hear me? colorredR/colorcolororangeA/colorcoloryellowI/colorcolorgreenN/colorcolorblueB/colorcolorindigoO/colorcolorpurpleW/color!"/b

A great wind ran through the dead tunnel. Rainbow sniffed it, and then smirked. "I was going to send you on a pointless gnome quest and erase your memories after you're back on the surface with the book, but I have a imuch/i better plan. Rude, selfish, ignorant, juvenile brats need to be put to work." He snapped his plastic fingers, which made a surprisingly loud echo through the tunnel. A rainbow cube appeared around the opening, making the bright light that shined from the month of Eating sun in Happy Valley rainbow-coloured throughout the tunnel identical to what a prism could do. "You can't break through the box until I let you. Now, come with me, foolish babies."

He beckoned for them to follow, and they do so. Rainbow, despite being only a little bit taller than Danny, the taller of the two siblings, had a commanding aura about him. 'He must be older than he looks,' Danny thought.

Sammi, now trying to be polite, modestly asked, "What is this?"

Rainbow turned around and smiled maliciously at her, making the Kacheek recoil. "If you absolutely must know, this is the Gnome Underground. Only one out of every one hundred and fifty gnomes bought from the Gardening Store are alive or have the ability to eventually become animate. The first living gnome, Roy G. Bip, whom I am graciously named after…"

As they walked through the everlasting tunnel with the little light that oozed from Danny's Oozing Candle, the Kougra Gnome droned on and on about the gnomes. He mentioned the most preposterous and unreal things, saying that gnomes had enlisted the help of Symols to dig tunnels that covered the underground regions of every place in Neopia, even being able to reach Virtupets Space Station and some parts of Kreludor. "We had to use Faerie Symols for that," he said happily.

As they approached a doorway, they passed a Sleeping Chia Gnome. "This is Ecksy," Rainbow says, pointing to the gnome. "She's supposed to be guarding the northern entrance, but she's always asleep."

Ecksy snorted in her sleep. A snot bubble emerged from her nose as she murmured sleepily, "Who -" –snort- "Who goes there?"

"Just I, Rainbow, with a couple of… iassistants/i," Rainbow said, smirking as he said the last word. Sammi shrunk back a little in fear.

The guard gnome waved her hand airily. "Very well, Playful Kougra, you can go on through…"

Rainbow flushed again at the mention of Playful Kougra. "My name is –"

Ecksy smiled in her sleep as her snot bubble popped all over Rainbow's foot. "No need to get all colourful over me," she said before she rolled over to the left and gave a loud snore.

Rainbow rolled his eyes and continued leading the two Neopets deeper into the gnome tunnels. They now seemed to be descending.

"The Gnome Master Headquarters is, of course, underneath the Neopian Bazaar, where the Gardening shop is. We're heading there now. Do not talk or make eye contact to any other gnomes you may see."

This was a very hard thing to do for Danny and Sammi, for the tunnels were now literally flooded with gnomes, running to and fro. They all seemed to be preoccupied with something, some of them holding baskets of Neggs. As Rainbow saw these gnomes, Sammi could not help but observe that a slight frown went over his noble face.

Finally, they stopped outside of a large door made of obsidian and patched with what appeared to be colourful pieces of plastic. A Sitting Bruce Gnome and a Welcome Lupe Gnome stood at either side of the door. They smiled at Rainbow as he approached the door, and, to the babies' surprise, he smiled back to them. However, as the two gnomes saw Danny and Sammi, their smile turned malicious, and they started chattering in a strange gibberish with Rainbow. Rainbow only smiled pompously and returned the strange gnome language, mentioning "Prism" and "Moonbeam" and indicating, respectively, the Bruce gnome and the Lupe gnome.

The conversation was short, for their language was fast. In only a little while, the two gnomes opened the door to a large tunnel shrouded in darkness. Rainbow beckoned for the two Neopets to follow. "Come, now, before the gate closes," he said as the hinges of the large door began to creak. However, he strolled inside with an air of slowness, leaving the baby Lupe and Kacheek to follow behind at a dash.

"Rainbow must be royalty or something," Danny murmured in Sammi's ear. She nodded vigorously, but stopped as the dark tunnel ended.

They were on the top tier of a gigantic, spherical room made of stone. Steps ran down from the west, east, north, and south sides, where doors like the north gate they had just entered were located past similar dark tunnels. The room was a bustle of movement; most of the gnomes seemed to congregate on the lower four tiers, with stray gnomes tapping away at small games by themselves or with a friend on top. The bottom tiers were filled with buildings, most of which appeared to be shops. Stands and caravans were set up like a marketplace on the second-lowest tier.

On the lowest level, an extremely large oval identical to what was presumably the island of grass in the middle of the bazaar above, there was a large, crystalline cube, similar to the one Rainbow had made back at the opening to their lawn in Terror Mountain, covering up something that seemed to roar on occasion and move to make the entire room shake. Gnomes holding more baskets of Negg bustled out of the cube.

"This is the Gnome Master EchQue," Rainbow proclaimed, holding up his hands. He began to descend the stairs, Danny and Sammi following.

As they passed the third level, there was a shell that appeared to be a lounge for some of the gnomes. As Rainbow passed, a Hunting Grarrl Gnome stood up and yelled, "Hoi, Playful Kougr'! How're the games goin'?"

Danny expected the Kougra gnome to snap back colourfully, proclaiming his name was Rainbow, but he did not. Instead, he muttered, "Shut up, Storm," and sped up his pace. Storm whispered something to the gnomes around him, and they all began to laugh and cast looks at Rainbow. They completely disregarded Danny and Sammi, though one of them began whispering in the same gnome gibberish to another one of them as they passed.

For a split second, Danny felt a pang of pity for Rainbow. The Lupe was pitifully given a reminder of Donny, one of his friends at the daycare they sometimes went to when Joni had to leave Terror Mountain to do errands. Donny, a Baby Lenny, was extremely smart from reading many books that his rich owner bought him from the day that he was born. As a result, he was arrogant and enjoyed pointing out other peoples' mistakes. When he walked, he walked as if the entire world was his; as if he knew everything there was to know about his surroundings. Naturally, he was extremely unpopular but was a common target of jokes and darts. At these times, Donny bowed his head and quickly ran into a corner. After he built a fortress of books to try and block out the sounds of the bullies' laughter, he allowed nobody to talk to him and told Danny to go away every time the Lupe approached with consolidating words, and was moody for the rest of the day. Danny disbelievingly felt sympathy for the gnome that had commanded such a forceful aura when he was alone.

"You know," Sammi whispered to Danny as they approached the cube in the center, "I think you were wrong about that Playful Kougra freak. He's just a big, nerdy loser." Danny did nothing to attempt to make Sammi be quiet as she laughed; apparently she had heard what Storm had whispered to his friends back in the lounge behind them and found it extremely amusing.

Finally, they reached the cube in the center. Rainbow spoke, in his old imperative tone, "This is only a temporary feature for EchQue. A week ago, an Unlucky Usul Fishing Gnome named Crystal accidentally tripped the Easter Cybunny as she passed through our tunnels. The Easter Cybunny broke her ankle, and her Neggs scattered throughout the Underground."

As Rainbow raised his plastic hand and created an entrance to the cube, he began to explain how the gnomes now had to hoard all of the Easter Cybunny's Easter Neggs to the cube that Crystal had turned herself into as the Cybunny rested her broken joint. Sammi, however, was confused, and raised a hand as Rainbow said that the Cybunny had no chance of recovery before Easter, and all living gnomes from Neopia now had to band together to deliver the Neggs.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Playful, but what's an Easter Cybunny?"

Rainbow turned around, presumably to correct the baby Kacheek at her mention of Mr. Playful, but then heard the conclusion of her question. The Kougra gnome resumed walking, and said airily, "She is the deliverer of all Easter Neggs. As she has been hiding in this cube for so long and has not delivered any Easter Neggs at all this year, of course Easter has faded from your memory.

"I suppose you felt an impulsion to purchase a gift for your owner at this time of year. Why do you think you bought uA Krawks Grey Day/u for your owner for Grey Day? The holiday is not Grey Day. It is Easter. You normally purchase Neggs for your owner for Easter, and likewise your owner purchases you Neggs and hides them throughout your NeoHome to find. Without any Easter Neggs, Easter in Neopia could not be. Without any Easter Neggs, living gnomes could not be."

Danny and Sammi drank in the information. They wracked their memories to try and recall memories of Easter in previous years past, but they could not. Rainbow was correct; with the absence of the 'Easter Cybunny', the holiday was as forgetful-worthy as Nova Day.

Rainbow stopped walking before a wall made of crystal. All around them, they were surrounded by a strange, light-blue light, preventing them from seeing the outside of the box. The gnome knocked on the wall, and it shattered. Sammi nearly screamed, but Danny put a quick paw on her mouth. As she screamed silently, they walked through the shards, which did not cause pain when walked on. The wall spontaneously fixed itself on its own accord as they passed.

Rainbow now lead them to a hallway filled with baskets of Neggs. Close-up, the baskets were all labeled with Neopia worlds, and gnomes were picking them up and walking directly out of the crystal walls, which would explain why there were no gnomes at the front entrance of the polyhedron.

Danny anticipated the thought of Rainbow's task for them being delivering the Neggs for the gnomes, but to his surprise they walked right through the passage to meet another wall, this one made of pure crystal. Rainbow tapped five different spots at a rapid pace, and after he spoke a mass of gnome gibberish, the wall simply faded away.

They walked past it. Sammi stood at the spot where the wall had been and wondered aloud, "I wonder what will happen when the wall reappears?" before she was yanked deeper into the cube by Danny.

Now, the light was no longer as bright, and it slowly faded to darkness. Rainbow's stride, however, was still proud, and it led the two Neopets into gloom. A roar suddenly rushed past, and Sammi cowered in fear while Danny grew fearful in his thoughts. They both wanted to leave, but they could not forsake Rainbow, knowing that the gnome would most likely punish them even more for their attempted escape. Instead, they just held their breaths until a bright light met them, and there, in what looked like the center of the box, they saw a figure.

It was an extremely large, fat Cybunny, disproportional to a Neopet that could race around dark, narrow tunnels and deliver Neggs to all Neopian worlds. Rainbow raised his arms and bowed, declaring, "Mistress Easter Cybunny. My, you look pleasant today."

The Easter Cybunny rolled back her head and laughed, which sounded identical to the roars they had heard from the outside. "That's bologna, Playful Kougra. You think I'm as ugly as gross food."

Rainbow bit his lip at the mention of Playful Kougra, and said, "My name is Rainbow."

The Cybunny laughed again. "Do you think I care?" she asked rhetorically. Then, she looked at Danny and Sammi, now attempting to keep themselves out of the Cybunny's menacing, maniacal glare. "And what's this? Babies?! You said you'd bring me something that could help me, not something I have to babysit!"

Rainbow waved his hand again. "Nay, your Easter greatness. They have wronged me. They deserve to be put to work under your great rule."

"You can stop the fake flattery, you stupid gnome," the Cybunny said. "I'll tell you the next time I need you to bring me out of my depression spell." She raised her ankle on to a footstool and then commanded for the departure of the gnome. "I want to talk to my new servants alone," the Cybunny explained as Rainbow bowed and left. He cast a warning glance at the two babies before he stepped out from the left wall.

"So, you two," the Cybunny said, now looking at them with one eye. "What are your names?"

"My name's Danny," said Danny, trying to avoid eye contact with the Cybunny, "and my sister's name is Sammi."

"What two very boring names," the Cybunny yawned. "From now on, as long as you're in the gnome tunnels, your names will be Buzz and Acara."

"But we are Lupe and Kacheek!" Danny retorted, forgetting his manners for the first time in his life out of fear of the Cybunny.

The Cybunny laughed. "Who cares? My name's Easter, and I'm a Cybunny. You don't get to decide your name."

As they talked, Sammi walked over, unobtrusively, to the footstool. She began to examine the Cybunny's ankle, which was the size of her entire head. The Kacheek poked it and looked up at Easter. She did not seem to notice. Quickly, she scrambled back to Danny's side, who had not noticed his sister running off to pursue danger as he exchanged words with the mistress.

"My mission for you is to take back all of the Neggs that the Snowager has taken from me. If you fail, I will eat you, or the remains, anyway. Now go; Rainbow will lead your way through the wall."

Danny recoiled at the thought of having to go meet the Snowager again. Last time, he had acted coldly towards the two siblings, and that was only because they had disturbed his rest. This time, they actually had to steal something from his large pile of treasure. There was no going back from such a fate. As he turned to leave to face his doom, he beckoned for Sammi to follow him, but she was now running to the footstool Easter's ankle was resting on.

"Sammi! bNo!/b!" he yelled, but it was too late. When Easter's eyes were closed, the Kacheek kicked the stool out from under the large foot, and it fell to the floor with a bang. At that instant, Rainbow appeared back in the chamber.

"What happened?!" he yelled. Easter, however, did not seem to notice her injured foot smashing on the floor.

"I'll tell you what, Playful Kougra Gnome!" Sammi yelled. "Your almighty mistress is faking her injury! She's just been making you gnomes work for her. Y'all've been scammed!"

Rainbow did not seem to know who to believe. From the wall, most of the gnomes they had seen on their way there, including Ecksy (half-asleep), Prism, Moonbeam, and Cloud ran in. "What happened?" they yelled in an identical way as Rainbow. Rainbow just pointed to Easter's eyes, which snapped open.

"How dare you!" she screamed. "How idare/i you! I – I –"

They never figured out what she was going to say. The gnome guards now all saw that their mistress was not injured at all. Instead, they all began shouting a gibberish war cry, and a mass of gnomes, some of them carrying Negg baskets, appeared from nowhere. All of the gnomes pelted the Easter Cybunny with Neggs. She recoiled, screaming.

"No! You can't do this!" Danny ran up to their line of fire and shouted as loud as he could. All eyes were now on him, so they didn't notice Easter beginning to escape. "This Cybunny, as corrupt as she may be, is the embodiment of Easter. Without Easter in Neopia, there will be no Negg hunts; no holiday; no Neggs at all. Easter will cease to exist, and all we have to look forward to is Grey Day, a holiday where everything is sad. Easter was a happy event, and if you continue to pelt this fat Cybunny with Neggs, there will be no happiness, only grey! Think about it, gnomes."

A wave of murmuring broke through the crowd. However, a voice from the back said, "Who cares? We livei underneath/i Neopia!"

Gnome voices cried out "he's right" and they all readied their fire again. However, Sammi jumped up beside her brother.

"Then think of it this way. If you remove Easter, you'll no longer be living. You'll just be coloured chunks of plastic!"

A silence swept over the crowd as a result of Ssammi's words, broken only when Easter dropped from a hole in the ceiling she was trying to escape through with a loud isplat/i. Storm the Grarrl gnome suddenly asked, "Your words may ring true, filthy living Neopet. But what are we going to do about this Cybunny? She's shamed us all."

"You can strip her of her greatest power over you: her size. Make her cute, adorable; a true spirit of Easter. Make her a real Neopet again."

"That I'll gladly do to such a hag," Rainbow said. He spoke in gibberish to the crowd behind him, and was answered with a cheer. All of the gnomes present surrounded Easter in a circle, and she raised her paw, as if to attempt to ward off the gnomes. However, they all raised their hands and said something in their language that increased in tempo until there was a large puff of smoke. It escaped through the ceiling, and there in Easter's place was an extremely adorable baby Cybunny.

"You can't do this to me!" Easter said, her voice now squeaky and high-pitched.

"It's the greatest punishment for you," said Rainbow, now towering over his former mistress. "Now get out of here, and take your Neggs with you!"

"I'll get you back one day, you stupid gnomes!" Easter said, collecting all of her Negg baskets and then turning to leave. "Especially iyou/i, you Playful Kougra!"

"My name is Rainbow!" Rainbow yelled, and he kicked Easter right out of the gnome tunnels. The crystalline cube they were still in shook and with another bout of smoke it become an Unlucky Usul Fishing Gnome. Some of the gnomes in the congregation, namely the fishing ones, welcomed Crystal back to their society. Around Danny and Sammi, all of the gnomes began cheering, and sounds of the beginning of a party began to envelope the lower tier of EchQue.

"Um, Rainbow," Sammi said hesitantly. He now turned around and smiled authentically at the Kacheek he had called brat so long ago. "Can we go home now?"

Thus, their Easter was saved, and everything seemed like the babies had not gone wandering around the Gnome Underground. However, Sammi never looked at the gnome on their lawn the same ever again.

It always looked just a little different to her every time she saw it.


End file.
